


Ever at your Service

by Bhelryss



Category: Naruto
Genre: Gen, Genin Era, thank you dovey for letting me borrow your idea
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-15
Updated: 2020-08-16
Packaged: 2021-03-01 19:20:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 3,581
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23672206
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bhelryss/pseuds/Bhelryss
Summary: When Itachi kills the Uchiha, he kills the Haruno too.Bound together by history and love, the Uchiha and the Haruno fall together.Bound together by history, trauma, and love, Sasuke and Sakura build their new future.
Relationships: Haruno Sakura & Uchiha Sasuke
Comments: 26
Kudos: 179





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Dovey](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dovey/gifts).



Sakura is four years old when she is introduced to Sasuke. He’s four too, with lively dark eyes and a head of fluffy dark hair, where Sakura is neatly combed pink hair and jewel green eyes. Haruno Kizashi leans over the children, Sakura clinging to his leg and Sasuke standing an independent three steps away from Fugaku’s feet, and claps a shoulder to Fugaku’s shoulder.

“Told you they’d get along.” Mebuki brags, even though the children have not even interacted. “She’ll be Sasuke’s Haruno, when she’s old enough for the secrecy seal.” It’s fitting, after all. The younger daughter of the Haruno clan head, and the younger son of the Uchiha clan head. After today, they’ll spend more time together, and learn to trust each other, like how Mikoto trusts Mebuki, and Mebuki trusts Mikoto. “Now tell me, how’s the family? Yuuka is so worried about Itachi, you know.” 

Shooing Sasuke away and towards the little park inside the Uchiha’s isolated district, while Mebuki does the same with Sakura, Mikoto and Mebuki find a bench to sit on, as they catch up. The blooming roses at the base of Mebuki’s throat mean she’s sworn to keep Mikoto’s secrets, just like the nettles circling her oldest daughter’s bicep mean she’s sworn to keep Itachi’s. One day Sakura will pick her own seal design, and it will tie her to Sasuke and his secrets in a way that mere friendship or verbal oaths will not.

“I’m Sasuke,” Sasuke says, much bolder than Sakura, mindful that Itachi will be disappointed if he upsets Yuuka-nee-chan’s little sister. “Do you know how to play ninja?” Sakura shakes her head, bangs slipping into her face and obscuring most of her vision. Sasuke wrinkles his nose, but accepts this. “Well, I’ll teach you.” He promises, reaching out a hand for Sakura to take.

She stares at it, and him, for a long moment, before taking his hand with a tiny smile. Sasuke tugs her along, and begins to explain how to play. Mebuki looks over from where she’d been frowning, and her expression melts into a smile. “They’re getting along just fine.” Like she’d never been worried that Sakura’s shyness would interfere with her destined friendship with Sasuke.

“Sasuke is a warm child,” Mikoto says, lines in her face giving away his continued frown, though her mouth never turns down. “He probably puts her at ease.” They both watch the two children, seeing all the reason for the discussion they’re having in a simple, ancient code from their girlhoods in the laughter of Sasuke and the shy smiles Sakura gives back, as she chases after Sasuke, threatening him with her “kenjutsu.”

The silence between them sits for a moment, heavy and brooding. Treason is a heavy topic, but they both know that, for these children, for the children of both their clans, it is a necessity. The Sandaime and his council had sentenced both their families to a cramped, walled compound on the opposite side of the village from their ancestral homes, sprawling and old as the Senju’s, for suspicions of tampering with the Kyuubi, on suspicion of killing the Fourth. Or on suspicion of aiding the one who’d murdered both Namikaze and Uzumaki.

As if Mikoto hadn’t been Kushina’s best friend, as if a dozen Uchiha hadn’t died battling the beast. As if a score and more of Haruno hadn’t died while ushering other civilians into the shelters. It was infuriating, it was devastating, it was enough for Mikoto, Fugaku and the Uchiha elders to decide it was  _ enough _ . It was enough that Mebuki and the Haruno had brought all their civilian influence to bear, to back their Uchiha.

They were doing this so their children wouldn’t have to grow up knowing they weren’t trusted by the village the lived and died for, that they would live and die in.

“The Haruno will follow, Mikoto.” Kizashi promises. “Just like we always have, we’ll have your backs.” 

When Yuuka dies suddenly, drowned in the river and fished out like so much trash, Shishui stands at Itachi’s side. Both Uchiha are dry eyed, but Sasuke is teary and Sakura is bawling. Kizashi tries to comfort the children, but his efforts seem hollow. It is rare that an Uchiha outlives their Haruno. As ninja, their lives are short and violent, but Haruno...are civilians. 

It’s unnatural, and in its unnaturalness lies the tragedy, and eventually, the suspicion. Yuuka had been sworn to hold Itachi’s secrets. The nettle ring around her arm had been the proof. Itachi was...odd, after her death. And then Shishui dies the same way. Drowned in the river, and fished out by a wild-eyed Itachi. There was the suspicion, sparked to life by the deaths of his closest companions, and his nonreactions.

And then, well.

Sakura comes back from the park and the training fields, pulling Sasuke with her on her way home. Chattering easily about her playdate with Ino, who is kind and wonderful and “going to be a ninja just like you, Sasuke!” Sasuke goes into the compound proper, his house inside the walls, and Sakura backtracks to the sprawling ring of homes and apartments that surround the compound. The Haruno complexes that act as a buffer from the rest of the village. 

And comes face to face with bloody carnage. She screams and screams and screams, but no Uchiha come to save her. None of the police force can hear her. The people who rush Sasuke to the hospital, struck down by Itachi’s mangekyo, don’t even think to check on the Haruno. They’re just civilians, so of course they survived. Why would Itachi have killed the Haruno?

Except, they didn’t. Except, he did.


	2. Chapter 2

Back before Konohagakure was founded, the Senju and the Uchiha were at war. With each other and in general, but especially with each other. There was a hatred that lived deep in their hearts, a feud that had existed so long that the origin had been forgotten. The sharpened blade of that hate was the recent dead, the steel body the long line of dead between them. It spurred the clan heads onward, towards conflict, and combat, and more dead between them.

And guarding the Uchiha clan home were the Haruno.

They weren’t battle aides, per se. They didn’t use their chakra in battle like the Uchiha did, in stunning displays of ninjutsu, and in some cases nasty genjutsu. The Haruno were martial because that had been a time in which to  _ survive _ was to be able to fight. They guarded the homes with blades, traps, and with layers and layers of seals made and laid down and charged by those who’d learned over the ages. And then there was the layers and  _ layers _ of genjutsu, none particularly powerful by themselves, and only when activated all  _ together _ proved very effective.

But that was the warring era. With peace, with Konohagakure, the Haruno retired their blades. They became one of the First Clans of Konoha, even though they were civilians. They held a seat on the newly created civilian council, they held sway even with the ninja clans and council because they grew wealthy on the backs of their shops. They weren’t merchants, they didn’t travel away and come back with goods. They were first-class smiths, and they ran comprehensive weapons supply stores to cater to the growing ninja populations.

And they lived among the Uchiha, as they always had done. 

Sakura doesn’t know when the seals were introduced. She can’t find the first mention of them in her family’s library, in their histories written in shaking handwriting over yellowed, fragile papers. She’s looked because she has always been curious and has always wanted to know what she doesn’t, but she hasn’t found.

There is no thought in her mind to ask. (That’s a lie, there’s a thought, but it is always followed by an overwhelming wave of grief and desolate loneliness, so she pretends she never thought to do that.)

All that Sakura knows is that at some point, maybe during the warring era, maybe later, maybe even before, the Haruno were bound to the Uchiha by a seal. They’d always been bonded in another way, by history and codependence, but...the seal was special. Sakura had always been told it was special. It made a Haruno  _ special _ to a single Uchiha. 

And, and she was the last. And she didn’t know how to do the fuinjutsu. She couldn’t even find a  _ single _ component of the fuinjutsu,  _ anywhere _ . She was eight and she was alone in the whole world except for Sasuke, and she had no idea how to follow in the footsteps of her family.

She knew the history, she knew both the old histories of the Uchiha and the Haruno. She knew that before she was born the Uchiha and the Haruno had been moved across the village. Sakura knew that she was destined to be with Sasuke forever, and that her sister drowned in the river, and that Itachi-nii had, he had-

Sakura ground the heels of her hands into her closed eyes, trying to rub out the sensation of tears building up and threatening to spill. And those that escaped her crusade were swiftly swiped away, because she couldn’t risk getting these old papers wet. Her mother would kill her-

A sob.

The moment stretches on, with Sakura sitting perfectly still, heels of her hands still pressed to her eyes. The lights hurt now, when her eyes aren’t teary or closed. She’d been awake for so long, now. Sasuke hadn’t woken up, but the nurses had taken one look at her and let her in the room. They’d even brought her blankets, though they warned her not to curl up on the hospital bed with Sasuke.

She was a civilian, and Sasuke was an Academy student. They said that even that little bit of training made him dangerous to her, if he woke up confused and defensive. She didn’t believe it though, because she was Sasuke’s  _ Haruno _ . She was special to him, he wouldn’t  _ hurt _ her. So she waited until the nurses left, and took her borrowed blankets, and the old book of secrets she hoped might hold the key to her family’s seals, and climbed up onto the bed.

Carefully, in case Sasuke could be jostled awake, Sakura settled at the foot of the bed. If she stretched out with her head by the guardrail, she could almost touch Sasuke’s feet with her toes. The bed was so big, they were really asking for her to climb up. Plenty of room for a Sakura, after all. More than enough, really.

The nurses chase her away after three days. They picked up her blankets, turned her out of them, and shoo her out the door. “You need to shower,” they chided, “You need to eat!” Sakura opened her mouth and they cut her off, “Not from the vending machine! The hospital cafeteria at least. Silly girl, go home and shower, and when you come back someone will march you down to the cafeteria, and only then can you come back!”

So Sakura shook her head to send her hair flying around her face like a rough cloud, patted down the worst of the tangles that she could feel, and turned her tiny feet towards home. She spent maybe twenty minutes there, and half of those under hot water. She threw herself into clean clothes, searched for and then shoved another book into her bag, and kept her eyes forward, always. 

Even with the cleanup mostly finished, there were still hints of bloodstains on the floors. There were screens missing because they had been ruined. Her home didn’t look safe anymore, so she hurried, hurried, hurried. The less time she spent here the better, Sakura decided. 

Even if Sakura never found out how to replicate her family’s seals, Sasuke needed her. She didn’t need a seal to be  _ special _ . They were the only ones left, for each other, of their families...Sasuke  _ needed _ her. With or without a seal, they’d be together forever. And she’d take care of him, just like the old books talked about.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> grief

Sasuke stays asleep for a long time. Too long. Long enough that Sakura gets too hungry for even the cafeteria, too tired even for the chairs around Sasuke’s bed, and too tired for the other half of his hospital bed. Eventually, she has to go home. Go...to the house. The Hokage had come by once, while Sakura was holding vigil, and he’d promised that their places had been cleaned. 

_ Promised _ .

Which means it was real. He promised, which means it’s true. 

So Sakura goes home, goes...to the houses. And it is true!! Some of the screens are missing, along with like, rugs and stuff, but there’s no blood and no more bodies. It’s not her home anymore. In the face of all that, she backs out the door and goes to Sasuke’s house instead.

It takes her a while to find it, and she goes empty home to empty home, trying to remember where the  _ right _ one is. It’s around here  _ somewhere _ .

On the third house, she opens the door, and it’s the right one.

Blessedly, it’s clean too, and Sakura can pretend Aunty Mikoto is out visiting someone else for a while. She digs around the fridge for some food she can heat up and eats at the table with her elbows resting on it. Her mom would be so-

Sakura puts the leftovers back in the fridge, not hungry any longer.

Then, because she is tired and sad, she curls up in Sasuke’s bed with one of the soft creatures she’d left in the room  _ before _ and cries herself to sleep. Great, heaving sobs, until she can’t cry anymore and her body is heavy.

In the morning, Sakura stays in bed until her stomach cramps too much with hunger. She feels heavy and tired, and she doesn’t want to get up. The stuffed creature (Lamby, an old friend and an old comfort, one she thought she’d outgrown) in hand, Sakura drags herself back into the kitchen to finish the food she’d tried eating last night. It takes her  _ ages _ to finish even that.

Aunty Mikoto isn’t back yet.

(Aunty Mikoto isn’t, isn’t-)

Sakura stares at her hands and then buries them in her lap underneath a napkin so she doesn’t have to look at how they shake.

She goes back to bed.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> grammarly told me the tone was anxious

A determined set of knocks finally dislodges Sakura from the bed. The sheets are wrinkled and have come untucked from the edges as she’d turned and turned in fitful sleep and in empty wakefulness, making of herself a shrouded body. She drags the sheets with her, defensive armor, and cracks open the door.

Nobody’s home. Nobody will ever be home again. “Go away.”

She closes the door in the face of a team of genin and goes back to bed.

On the fourth day of knocks, and denials, Sakura opens the door wide, with rage in her eyes, and catches the black-haired one off guard by shoving him to the ground. “GO AWAY,” she yells, chest heaving and arms trembling. She doesn’t have any more words to yell and just stands there until the excitement leaves her body. And then, Sakura takes the better part of valor and sits down on the doorstep. Her body is so heavy, and she’s got no energy.

The blond one laughs, blue eyes like Ino’s, and kicks the brown-headed one gently. The sensei, a great and tall person in a heavy-looking coat nods. Their eyes are hidden behind a pair of shades. “Haruno Sakura, this is Team Nao. We are charged with aiding in your care on a mission by mission basis. A first concern: have you enough food to eat while your Uchiha is in recovery?”

That is so many words.

“Can we come in?” The blond one asks. “It’ll be quick. And,” they add, like a treat, “we can escort you back to the hospital afterward.”

“I’m Nana,” says the brown-haired one. Her voice is pretty, and soft. Is she really a ninja? Auntie Mikoto was a ninja once, with a soft and pretty voice. Maybe kunoichi just have nice voices? “Sakura-chan, can you show me to your kitchen?”

Because she asked nicely, and because she sounds like - because she asked nicely, Sakura shuffles through the house to show them the kitchen. Nana goes straight to the fridge, while the sensei checks the high cabinets she can’t reach. “Not much, then.” The blond one mutters, taking down notes. “Can you even cook?”

“Yes,” Sakura hisses. She hates them. She hates all of them.

Nana comes back over, and reaches out to touch - Sakura jerks away. “Can you tell me what you can cook, then? I’d like to make sure Sota puts the ingredients down for you.” Hesitant, Sakura quietly admits that she can’t really cook. There are cookbooks in a drawer that she can use, but...she’s never had to do it for herself before.

Team Nao is in and out quickly. Coming back with enough groceries for all the recipes that Nana had suggested. Easy things to make, like rice, and pre-cooked meat that she only has to heat up, and raw veggies for her to nervously gnaw on while they put things away for her.

After being gently convinced to shower, team Nao escorts her back to Sasuke’s hospital room. “In three days we will return for a status report,” Nao-sensei announces. “At precisely 11:15 in the morning.” And then they’re all gone.

Sakura climbs up onto Sasuke’s bed, and presses her face into her knees. He’s still asleep, his vitals beep-beeping away in the silence. 

“Wake up,” she begs. “Wake up soon.”


	5. Chapter 5

Sasuke wakes up while she’s not there. She’s home, reluctantly cooking a meal for herself because there are no leftovers and the nurses won’t let her haunt the cafeteria  _ every _ day of the week, and she isn’t there. She isn’t there for hours. She shows up, with a container of cooling food in her bag next to a small book of fuinjutsu she’d pulled out of her family’s library. 

It had looked like something close to a beginner’s book, for novices. It explained some of the basics at least -

The nurse opens up the door and Sakura falls through eagerly, dropping her thoughts like change on the floor. “Sasuke!!” He jumps at her voice, twisting around from where he’d been looking out the window, and throws up his hands in some sort of stance. A heartbeat passes though, and he must recognize her. (Pink hair, bright red shirt a little too big - her family colors sized for an older cousin who won’t need it anymore-)

He  _ must _ recognize her because his stance drops, but there’s no smile on his face. “Sasuke?” She pauses, and watches him fist his hands in his hospital gown’s hem, and shifts from one foot to the other. “Are they letting you go?” Can they go home- not home. Nowhere’s home. Not anymore.

“Sakura,” he croaks with a rusty voice, and Sakura falls forward to wrap her arms around him. He’s real. He’s real and he’s awake. “I thought…” Sasuke squeezes her back, so tightly that she squeaks. “You’re okay.”

“I’ll go get the rest of your discharge paperwork,” the nurse says grandly, closing the door behind him as he goes.

Clinging to him, Sakura bursts into tears. “You’re a-awake!” She was so  _ alone _ . The house is so empty, and Team Nao has kept their appointments even when she can’t move from bed. Sasuke will know what to do. The Uchiha have always led. Sasuke will tell her what to do, and she’ll take care of him while she does it. Just like she’s supposed to.

Just like she’s supposed to. Like in the history books. She’ll learn, she will.

“Everything’s clean,” Sakura says, hiccuping a little. Not enough air in her lungs to compensate for the sobs. “And I cooked, a little.” Sasuke holds the boxed food in his hands and stares at it while Sakura pulls out her book. “And I found a book about seals, I um,” she looks at her feet.

“I’m trying to find the seal. Our seal.” She flips it open to the middle of the book and shows him the sample array illustrated there. “And, um.” Sakura blinks fiercely, trying to think of anything new. Anything  _ good _ . Something to brighten this hospital room.

She can’t think of anything else.

Sasuke latches on to her hand, like a lifeline. She squeezes it and struggles to put everything back in the bag with only one hand. “I’m going to kill him,” Sasuke promises, and his eyes are glittering with unshed tears to match the ones that Sakura had cried so easily. “For what he did. I’m going to kill him. I promise, Sakura.”

He bites at the thumb of his free hand until it bleeds, and awkwardly smears it across his palm. “I’m going to avenge our clans.”

A blood oath.

Hesitant, Sakura tentatively gnaws at her own thumb. No matter what she tries, she can’t push past the pain necessary to do the same. She holds her hand out after a long try, bloodless, and Sasuke shakes on it. 

“I’m your Haruno,” Sakura promises. There is no blood across her palm, but that doesn’t change her resolve. “I’m going to  _ help _ .”


End file.
